Jerome Wetzel is the Chief Television Critic for Seat42F and a regular contributing reviewer on Blogcritics. He also appears on The Good, The Bad, and the Geeky podcast and Let's Talk TV With Barbara Barnett.

Amazon Contextual Product Ads

Saturday, November 23, 2013

THE WALKING DEAD TV Viewer "Bait"

AMC’s THE WALKING DEAD hits the pause
button on most of its main cast this week in “Live Bait,” instead
backtracking to catch us up on what The Governor (David Morrissey) has
been doing. The hour, which features several new characters, and is very
loosely based on events from the novel Rise of the Governor (though
that story predates The Governor running Woodbury, while this episode
definitely does not), also does not bring us all the way up to the
present. Which means we can expect more Governor goodness next week.

If any character were to get two
consecutive episodes on their own, totally apart from everyone else, The
Governor is the absolute best choice for this role. He is complex, and
Morrissey chews up every scene he’s in, making him terrific to watch.
Plus, this is somebody who plays a main role in the show and has sat out
the past five episodes, so he needs some serious screen time to make up
for his absence.

I’m glad that THE WALKING DEAD chooses
to separate The Governor’s tale, rather than integrating it into other
episodes. For one thing, “Live Bait” appears to cover some of the time
between seasons, a period in which we didn’t see any other person’s
plot, as the prison group skipped a long period of time. For another,
it’s a stand-alone journey, more effective to be shown by itself and all
at once, rather than broken into pieces stuck in multiple installments.
THE WALKING DEAD is brave to make such a bold move, and it should pay
off.

“Live Bait” picks up shortly after The
Governor massacres his people. He is quickly abandoned by Martinez (Jose
Pablo Cantillo) and Shumpert (Travis Love), who see his instability
when The Governor won’t even move as a Walker approaches. And whom can
blame them? Someone so reckless in this world will be a liability, not a
help, and The Governor is both dangerous and unpredictable.

After wandering around on his own for
awhile, The Governor encounters a family holed up in an apartment and
introduces himself as ‘Brian,’ fibbing about his past. Dad Don (Danny
Vinson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) is ailing and being cared
for by his two adult daughters, Tara (Alanna Masterson, First Day), a
lesbian cop, sort of, and Lily (Audrey Marie Anderson, The Unit), a
single mother. The Governor plans to stay only for a short time, but
lingers as he sees a lot of his own deceased child, Penny, in Lily’s
girl, Megan (Meyrick Murphy, Jingle Belle).

The connection The Governor makes with
Megan is a very important one for this man. Here is someone barely
hanging onto life who shuns everyone, but a little girl can get through
to him. Penny represents the part of The Governor that was human and
good. Megan brings this back to the forefront. This version of the
Governor, even as only a surrogate father, is sweet and protective,
putting his life on the line for others, as he does when restocking
Don’s oxygen.

And we get to see vulnerability. As The
Governor stares at, then burns, a picture of his family, leaving the
past behind him, he is also embracing a new group. A chess game with
Megan references The Governor’s past, but it also makes him less
threatening in how he interacts with the child, and how she sees him, an
eyepatched-king. This is moving, emotional stuff, and Morrissey slays
it as effectively as his character handles Walkers.

I guess it’s time for The Governor to
change. As a villain, he went about as far as he could, brutalizing
those who did not deserve it and murdering his own people. Sure, he
could have gone out in a blaze of glory, trying to take as many of
Rick’s people with him as he could in the process, as he did in the
comics, but this is a far more compelling direction to take. Now we have
someone who, maybe doesn’t seek to make up for past wrongs, but, is
ready to move on. After everything he has done, can he?

With Megan, Lily, and Tara, he can. They
don’t know his history, and so only see him as the guy who has helped
the family stay safe. Tara even engages in a sexual relationship with
him. One can’t blame these women for falling under The Governor’s
charms, especially when they have no evidence telling them anything
different, as plenty of people who did see him for who he was followed
him, too.

But, this being THE WALKING DEAD, The
Governor doesn’t just get to sail off into the sunset with a happy
ending. Instead, after having to put down the Walker version of Don, The
Governor and the girls set out to find a new home, are attacked by
Walkers, and end up encountering Martinez.

This casts the scene of The Governor
standing outside the prison, glimpsed last week, in a new light.
Assuming he can convince Martinez to keep his mouth shut, something that
seems likely based on the preview for next week’s episode and their
past, The Governor may be there to ask Rick for help in protecting his
new family, rather than to kill everyone. Or, should tragedy befall The
Governor’s new group, I guess it’s conceivable that he renews his
vendetta.

I hope it’s the former. Revenge is
possible, perhaps, but how cool would it be to see The Governor join the
group in some capacity? Or at least try to. Obviously, this would not
be easy, but given the right set of circumstances, it may be possible,
and it would certainly alter the dynamics in a major way. At least until
he or Michonne makes a misstep and one of them tries to kill the other.